Update #5: 38 Flights of stairs later...

Oi! Hoje is sexta-feira, e eu estou muito feliz! Vida é legal!

 

I hope that everybody is having a great week! As per usual, my week here (My last until the field!!!) was super quick, and fairly unmemborable. Although I have loved my time training, I am absolutely ready to be out in the field. 16 hour days that only involve studying the language or Portuguese get to you pretty quickly. I'm ready to get out there and start preaching the good word. I've finally met some Brazilians that are going to Sao Paulo North, and they're super legit. A couple of them even speak English, so I wouldn't mind having them as companions down the road (after I get this language down.)

 

My language study is going well. The main problem I'm having right now is that I can't roll my Rs, which isn't too much of a problem now, but down the road it'll likely be embarrassing and be the ultimate sign of being an American. That, and the fact that my last name is super hard for Brazilians to say. Brazilians don't really have that many words that have "y"s in them, and most of them are based on foreign words (for instance, Youtube, pronounced "Youtub-ee"). But it'll come. It was just awkward when I tried really hard, and my result was having a lot of spit come out of my mouth in a very short period of time. It was embarrassing.

 

So this'll be my last email until I get into the field. I don't know if I'll be able to email on Tuesday/Wednesday when I arrive at my mission home, but if I don't, my P-days will start being on Mondays, almost always for the next two years. So you can start writing me on Sundays. Sundays are nice times to write, and I'd appreciate it. If you send me a letter, send it to my mission home address (Mom, could you put that address on my blog? Thanks! :D) But yeah. I like letters. They make me feel special. It's cold and lonely here in South America, so a metaphorical hug in the form of a letter would be lovely. And a metaphorical e-hug in the form of an email would be also lovely.

 

Referring to the subject of this email: Elder Burton and I started to realize that we climb A LOT of stairs every day. So we decided to count how many floors we go up or down in just one day. The day we counted, it was 38 floors up and down stairs. To people that say that you can't exercise while learning all day, I say: tell me that after going up and down 38 flights of stairs (And yes, that would translate to 19 floors up and 19 floors down. I think. My math skills are a bit rusty since focusing all on preaching the word of God in a different language.)

 

I'll have a lot more detail to give you on my next email, when I'm outside of this building that confines me almost every moment. It'll be a lot more exciting starting next week.

 

On to responses! If I have time, I'll write a follow up email! Tchau! Have a great week!

 

Elder Youd

 

Portuguese fun fact of the week: The word for "Turn signal" (like on cars) is pisca-pisca, which literally translates to "wink-wink." So if you want your driving experience to be more adorable, be sure to always turn on your wink-wink. Yes, this is real.

Nothing like a free cookie at the CTM!

Update #4: "What did the frog say to Bob Marley? Reggae."

Oi! (The joke from the title was something that my Brazilian posse told me. They all thought that it was the funniest joke ever...you have to make "reggae" sound like a ribbit.)

 

This email is going to be short this week, for two reasons: 1) I'm behind on responding to personal emails (a wonderful problem to have, thank you all so much!), and 2) because this week has literally been a blur of monotonous activity. Despite living thousands of miles away from home, I tend to forget that, outside these cold walls, are people who exist. The CTM has finally reached the point of "I just want to be in the field." Our teachers don't really know what to do with us, so they mostly just go over small gramatical stuff. I feel like I'm just waiting to jump into the transfer cycle at this point, so I twiddle my thumbs, learn a few words, memorize some scriptures, and wait for the next P-day, so I can talk to all of you good people.

 

Btw, there are a few email addresses that don't work on this list, so if you're reading this on my blog and want to be on my list, please email me again with your address. I might be able to fix it, but most likely it'll have to wait until I'm in the field and I'm not doing sprint-typing.

 

There have been some interesting things happen this week. Our Brazilian roommtes left on Tuesday, but we got another group come in on Wednesday night. As for now, we haven't connected with them yet, but that's just because they're in the "I'm in a daze because I just started my mission" mood. It'll come. Also, on the bright side of things, we got cereal for breakfast. For two. Days. It was a wonderful feeling. Most breakfasts, we have this warm oatmeal type milky substance that we put fruit in (It's yummier than it sounds), and a panini-style breakfast sandwich that we make ourselves from rolls, pieces of ham, and cheeses. But cereal...well, cereal is good. Also, once a week we have pizza night. The best kind of pizza is this chocolate banana pizza with some cinnamnon. I don't know the Brazilian name, but it's quite wonderful.

 

This is pretty much my entire week. It's been a mundane week where days came and went like the Rick Astley and harlem shake phases. (I have a feeling that these references are really old already.) Also, word got to us that the US might be going to war with Syria, and there's some scandal? If any of you write me, you should give me some news updates. I feel like I know nothing now. I love being a missionary, but at times like that, I remember that the world is still going. Also, I got my first taste of "I miss music" last night, when some car outside our window started blasting Run-DMZs version of "Walk This Way" and I got kinda excited. But alas, I'm good.

Alright, I'm gonna do some personal emails! I love you all!!

 

Elder Youd

 

Brazil/Portuguese fun fact of the week (I'm gonna start doing thsese): Weekdays in Portuguese are super cool. Literally translated, the days of the week are, starting on Sunday: "Sunday, 2nd day, 3rd day, 4th day, 5th day, 6th day, and Saturday." So today is sexta-feira.

Update #3: It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, there's someone in the street having a heart attack, so I guess that's not good

Oi!

This week has been so amazing here at the CTM!!!! Most of my email is going to focus on last wednesday, but aside from that, here are some interesting points:

-I finally figured out my new name. I have a group of Brazilian friends that I like to hang out with a lot, and they all pronounce my name "Elder Yooge". Apparently in Brazil, there's some TV show with a character named Youd (pronounced like yooge"), and he's Japanese. So that's cool.

-Speaking of which, the Brazilians here are so much fun! my portuguese is getting so much better talking to them! At first, we couldn't really connect with our roommates, but we finally found the first connection: Music. What started out as me humming ended up with all of us singing Alicia Keys' "Girl On Fire". It was a tender moment of bonding, and we've spent most of our free time with them ever since. Our posse is really me, Elder Burton, and Brazilian Elders Ruppel, G Cilva, E Sousa, Almeida, Oliveira, and a couple others whose names I always forget, but that's alright, because we know each other, and it's cool.

-Food here is still amazing. I've found that I need to stop overeating at meals here, because it's super easy to do so. Maybe I won't be losing weight after all in Brazil.

-Also, last Tuesday, we were playing volleyball, and I rolled my ankle. It's not sprained, but I really have a problem with getting competitive at things that I have no skill in. Kids, don't get too competitive. Volleyball is a silly game. But I'm good now.

So my main focus of this week was Wednesday, because...we got to go proselyting!! Our teacher took our class to Central Sao Paulo, and we were given two copies of the Book of Mormon that we had to give away in an hour! It was so cool. The city is phenomenal. And huge. Very, very, very, very big city. A lot of the buildings aren't that big in width or length (maybe 7x7 number of rooms), but then they go 30 or 40 stories high! And everyone in our district was able to give away all of our LDMs (Livro De Mormon, it's Portuguese. Come on.) Elder Burton and I started walking down the street, and at first, we had about 4 or 5 rejections. But then Elder Burton started talking to an older man about the book, and while he was listening, another guy in his mid-30s started looking at us, so I started talking to him. And both people took the books! My guys' main concern was whether it was free or not. After I finally learned what he was talking about, things went a lot smoother. As it turns out, you can actually have quite a bit of conversation with three weeks worth of Portuguese. The second book I gave away was on the bus ride home. Buses are beautiful places to proselyte, because the people know that they can't get away. (The buses are holy crowded, often fitting about 15 people more than what it can hold). The lady I gave it to didn't seem quite as interested as the first guy, but took it anyways. It was the coolest experience. Also, cars and traffic in Sao Paulo are CRAZY. It's interesting, there are actually a lot of traffic jams, and when that happens, there are people waiting on corners that sell what looked like peanuts and cotton candy to the drivers. They just walk out on the street when cars are stopped and start knocking on windows. But oh my goodness, Sao Paulo is such a cool city!!! When I'm in the field and not fighting for computer time like I'm a savage, I'll send y'all a picture of my view from my dorm window. It's like a movie, but cooler, because it smells like the city. It's like a movie with a scratch and sniff paper. Truly a 4d experience. Or it's real, but I like thinking about scratch and sniff pictures.

Also, about the subject of my email: while we were walking in Sao Paulo, there was a guy having a heart attack in the middle of the street. It was quite weird. A bunch of people were surrounding him. Luckily as we saw him, the ambulance got there, so that's good. I was probably in too much of a this-city-is-super-awesome shock to realize that the situation was more serious than my awestruck face likely showed. So that wasn't my proudest moment.

It's crazy, in less than three weeks I'll be in the field, and in 8 days, I will have been a missionary for a month!! I feel super great right now, like I'm metaphorically skipping on a cloud made of cotton candy, but in a more masculine way. Sorry, I feel the need to put a joke or two in here. My district, while I love them, is not too prone on humor, so aside from Portuguese/slapstick jokes, I've had to hold myself back. So I'll let myself go in emails. I swear, I don't talk like this as a missionary.

Well, I'm gonna start responding to individual emails! If I have more time at the end (I doubt it), I'll send a followup email. I'd love any and all letters from you!! Check if dearelder.com does the Brazil MTC. If you need the information, I'm Elder Youd, District 33-A, Ward 1, Room 419, Going to Brazil Sao Paulo North. It gets lonely here. We barely ever receive mail, so this is our time to feel love back home. Write to me! Tchau!

Elder Youd

Brazil CTM

Email 2: Ben-vindo from Brasilia!

Oi, pessoas!

 

I am happy to say that I am typing this email from a computer lab in the CTM (pronounced "say tay em ee"), from Brazil! After a long and tedious flight partway across the world, I landed safely in South America!

 

Btw sorry if i don't cap, this shift key is TERRIBLY tiny. So when I don't cap, just get used to it.

 

This CTM is absolutely amazing. It's the church's second largest building in the world, just behind the conference center. There are a ton of stairways that all look the same, so it's kind of like a maze. Perhaps there's some sort of spiritual undertone to this, but I can't think of anything...life is like a maze? I don't know, but I keep on thinking of "Life is like a box of chocolates" when I do those types of analogies, which feels weird since missionaries can't watch non-church movies, and Tom Hanks hates Mormons. I'm getting off subject.

 

There are definitely a ton of amazing things about the CTM. The food, while it doesn't look that great, tastes phenomenal. If the food always tastes this good, I won't ever have a bad day, with the exception of yesterday. yesterday at dinner, i looked inside the burrito-type thing they gave us and thought that there may be fish in it. I shrugged my shoulders, and started eating it anyways, and then I started to feel funny. My companion (Elder Burton, who came on the same day as me and who is ridiculously funny) asked me what was wrong, and then I told him that I was allergic to fish. He went up to the cooks and asked if there was fish in it, but since they only speak Portuguese (a lot of the workers aren't even Mormon), they didn't understand him. They said "nao" to him, but apparently there was something lost in translation, since 5 minutes later, one of the cooks comes up to him with another fish burrito. My guess is that he actually said it correctly, and they just wanted to mess with him. Or try to kill one of us. Regardless, it was funny, and I took a Benadryl, and now I'm fine.

 

Also, I have 3 Brazilian roommates, who I don't understand as much as I want to, but from what I do understand, they're super nice elders. The first one moved into our room yesterday, and he just looked like a ginger from South Jordan Utah, so Elder Burton and I were trying to speak Portuguese super well to impress him. As it turns out, he's from Portalegra, and we just looked like idiots. So that's cool. Regardless, when we can communicate, I like them a lot. Also, I love hanging out with the Hispanic missionaries. As it turns out, they struggle with the language as much as we do, and probably even worse since it sounds so much like spanish, but ever so slightly off. One of the Chilean missionaries taught me secrets to better ironing shirts. Apparently, turning them inside out is key. So that's cool.

 

There are some small downsides to being here. Firstly, the district that I'm in here isn't as tightly knit as the one in Provo. There are a couple grumbly bears in the group that bring our spirits down (namely, Elder Burton and I, since we both enjoy not being grumbly bears), and some of them don't quite recognize how lucky they are to be one of the 100 or so missionaries from North America that aren't among the 1100 waiting for their visas. I still haven't quite caught up on sleep yet, especially since I had to be up at 5:45 this morning to go to the Sao Paulo Temple (which is super cool, since it's made of primarily wood, but it's also a lot smaller than the pictures of it portray.) I think they switch off taking the missionaries to that temple and the Campinas temple, which I'm curious to see. Also, I'm doing alright with the language, but I still wish that I could do better with it, primarily to communicate and not sound like I'm five years old. It'll come, I just need to work on patience. Also, I ripped a pair of my pants yesterday while sitting down, which was embarrassing. I'll give you three guesses where it ripped, but I'm guessing you'll only need one. I felt rather silly, but luckily we were headed to bed 10 minutes later.

 

Our practice lessons are going well. I've improved a whole lot since the first lesson I taught in the MTC, where I just read off a script and didn't listen to what the investigator said. Of course, my MTC "investigator"/teacher was hard to understand because he was speaking a different dialect of Portuguese, from Capo verde. Honestly, it's slightly hard to learn Portuguese here because Brazil has so many little changes in the language based on the area. It's cool though.

 

I'm not going to send pictures today since the mission said they sent one or two pics to Mom and Dad's email accounts, primarily me with my just-as-jaded-as-me mission group.

 

Also, super cool: on P-days, we can walk around part of Casa Verde (the part of Sao Paulo that we're in, not the aforementioned Capo Verde) and go shopping and stuff. I don't know if we'll do that today, since Elder Burton's card is frozen and I don't know if mine is or not), but regardless, it makes me feel legit. The CTM isn't quite as prison-y as Provo.

 

Alright, thank you all so much for the emails! I feel so popular, like a king, or an actor, or one of those celebrities that are famous for reasons I don't know. I bet they get a lot of emails on their P-days. I'm gonna start responding to other emails, and if I have time, I'll email more! I'll be able to write longer emails out of the CTM, when I'm not pressured to just 45 minutes a wek.) Tchau! Eu amo voce!

 

Elder Youd

 

PS- Don't send me packages in the CTM. If you really love me and want to send packages, send them to my mission home in 3 weeks. But I appreciate the thought anyways.

I'm here!!

Hey, I won't be able to email long. I just wanted to email both of you to tell you that I got here safely! I'll be able to email more on Friday, but here are the details. Food is AMAZING. It's super cool to be able to walk out onto the streets of Sao Paulo. It kinda feels like I'm in a Jason Bourne movie, you know, the part where he's walking around in foreign cities that aren't fancy. The buildings all are simple, but the view is absolutely beautiful. Also, the people are so nice here, and I've only seen them for a day. Even if they don't know you, they are super kind, which I'm still getting used to. Also, this keyboard's shift key is tiny, so I keep on having to take more time to capitalize things. It's throwing off my groove. My companion is Elder Burton. He's going to my mission, but he was in a different district than me in Provo. I found out some official statistics. This week, 25 of us North Americans got our visas (either to go into the field or to come to the MTC.) 15 of us came to the CTM. There are about 1100 people waiting for their visas. This place has so few people, and most of them are spanish speakers learning Portuguese. The building is BEAUTIFUL though. Absolutely stunning. You should look up the pictures of it, and then imagine it as twice as pretty. Weird for a place that is rarely used, eh? Also, go to usps.com to look up stuff on packages. Don't bother sending any packages to the CTM. If you are, wait until I'm in the field. Also, don't try to smuggle things to me. Even if your intentions are good, it could end up being a huge legal thing if you try and sneak stuff in other things (such as a camera in a cake mix, etc.) I think they sent you an email about it. Hopefully they'll get you some good information. Well, my time is up, but I'll email you more on Friday! I love it here! Love you! Elder Youd